The Bodyguard (14)

But I’d seen all the others, including The Unhoneymooners so many times I’d accidentally memorized the scene where he confesses, “It’s so exhausting pretending to hate you.” His dramatic work in A Spark of Light was tragically underrated. And even though You Wish was widely panned for including every single rom-com trope in history—including, of all things, a mad dash to the airport—they still did those tropes really well, and so it was one of my perennial go-tos when I was feeling down.

Also, the way he kissed Katie Palmer in Can’t Win for Losing? Oscar worthy. Why wasn’t there an Oscar category for Best Kiss? He should go down in history for that one kiss alone. The first time I saw it, it just about killed me.

Like, I almost died from delight.

So it was not not a big deal that I’d just been assigned to protect him.

Note the double negative.

He was not not on my radar. I was not not affected by the thought of him.

I’d never have admitted it—least of all to myself—but I did have what you could describe as a perfectly normal, nonpathetic, comfortingly mild, not-at-all creepy little crush on him.

You know, in the way you might have a crush on the captain of the football team in high school. You’re not going to date the captain of the football team. You know your place—and your place is: A scribe for student government. A student liaison for community service. Vice president of the spreadsheet club.

It’s just a little sunny place for your fantasies to wander. Sometimes. Occasionally. In between your many other more important things to do.

No harm in that, right?

Wasn’t that ultimately what movie stars were for? To be fantasies for the rest of us? To add imaginary sprinkles to the metaphorical cupcake of life?

But now the reality was going to collide with the fantasy.

It was the reason I wanted to say no.

I liked the fantasy. I didn’t want Jack Stapleton to become real.

Plus, how could you protect a person who made you nervous? How could you stay focused with an actual god-living-among-humans just feet away from you? Glenn had a professional rep to protect, but so did I. I was supposed to impress the hell out of Glenn if I wanted the London job, but what was I going to do if Jack Stapleton showed up one day in that same navy and cornflower-blue baseball Tee he’d worn in The Optimist?

Good God. I might as well just quit now.

I’d seen Jack Stapleton kiss fictional people, bury a fictional father, beg for fictional forgiveness, and sob fictional tears. I’d seen him take a shower, brush his teeth, curl up under the covers at bedtime. I’d seen him rappel down a cliff face. I’d seen him hug his lost-then-found child. I’d seen him scared, and nervous, and angry, and even naked in bed with the love of his life.

None of it was real—of course. I knew that. I mean, I wasn’t crazy.

It wasn’t real, but it seemed real. It felt real.

I already cared about him, is what I’m saying. That distance you always maintain with your clients? He had already breached it—even though I’d never even met him.

Plus, there was just something about Jack Stapleton that I liked. The shape of his eyes—kind of sweet and smiley. The deadpan way he delivered his lines. The way he gazed at the women he loved.

Oh, it was going to be a long assignment.

But—and here came the pep talk—not impossible.

The guy on screen wouldn’t be the same person in real life. Couldn’t be. The guy on screen said funny things because funny writers wrote his lines. The guy on the screen looked picture perfect because the production department styled his hair and put his makeup on and chose his clothes. And the washboard stomach? You don’t get those for free. He probably spent hours and hours maintaining that thing. Hours that would’ve been far better spent, say, fighting poverty, or rescuing homeless pets, or, I don’t know, reading a book.

Maybe, if there was mercy in the universe, he’d be nothing like I always imagined.

Maybe he’d be as unlikable as most of my clients were.

Unlikable might help.

But I’d also take dumb. Rude. Slug-like. Pompous. Narcissistic. Anything that could demote him to an ordinary, real, mildly irritating person like everybody else … and let me get my work done.

I mean, sure. I’d have preferred to keep the fantasy.

But reality had its uses, too.





Five


CUT TO: ME ringing Jack Stapleton’s fancy doorbell in the Museum District.

In my standard pantsuit. Without the makeover I had so valiantly refused.

Kind of regretting that victory now.

This was an intake meeting, and I’d done dozens of them. Usually, the whole team went—primaries and secondaries—to meet in person and gather information. But the team was scrambling too hard right now to take the time.

So, today: just me.

Alone, and talking myself through the moment. You got this.

Once you learn to look at the world from a perspective of personal security, you can’t look at it any other way. I couldn’t walk into a restaurant, for example, without assessing the threat level in the room—even when I was off duty. I couldn’t not notice suspicious people, or vehicles that circled the block more than once, or empty vans in parking lots, or “repair crews” that may or may not’ve been doing surveillance. Honestly, I couldn’t get into my car without a three-step process: checking for signs of entry, checking the tailpipe for blockages, and checking under the chassis for explosives.